


Otherwise Occupied

by ThatAloneOne



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Blanket Permission, F/F, Occupation of Bajor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-06 05:35:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12810741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatAloneOne/pseuds/ThatAloneOne
Summary: Once upon a time, a shuttle containing a strange box crashed on Bajor.A hundred years later, the Cardassians rematerialize an alien from that box — Jadzia Dax. The Resistance rescues her. Once they get a translator pieced together, they start putting together a plan to strike back at the Prefect of Bajor. In the meantime, Kira can't help but start to fall in love.





	Otherwise Occupied

**Author's Note:**

> Since this is set during the Occupation, a quick review of relevant characters! If you have any more questions about them, you can leave them in the comments! You should be okay if you remember vaguely that they exist.
> 
> \- Shakaar Edon, who led the cell.  
> \- Lupaza, who was the tech support.  
> \- Furel, who dated Lupaza.  
> \- Lorit Akrem, Kira's friend who went missing on the ship with Ziyal.  
> \- Latha Mabrin, died as a vedek in canon but was known to be violent before then.  
> \- Klin and Ornak, mentioned in canon. I made them married.  
> \- Mobara, mentioned in canon.  
> \- gul Zarale, the previous Prefect of Bajor. He liked to burn villages down.

“Shakaar, tell me we aren’t going to waste precious lives and resources on an _alien_.” Latha Mabrin paced the campsite with a vigour, seconds away from tearing his already thin hair out with his fists.

Ash spun out from beneath his boots to dust Kira’s hair. She could taste the fire with the night air more than she could taste the weak soup she’d been sipping before Latha started into his rage. It was a waste of his energy to be stalking around like this, but she knew it would be a waste of her own to try and tell him so. The meal was meager enough without wasting it.

A sinoraptor screamed from deep in the forest, only about half as enraged as Latha, ranting like his life depended on it. “I don’t care if she fell from the sky in an Orb or a box or naked!” He waved his hands, like one of those points needed illustration. Kira wasn’t clear on what the gesture was supposed to achieve. “That’s not what the Resistance is for!"

“It’s not just for the alien,” Shakar reminded him. He toyed with his own meal, a portion that Kira knew was smaller than her own. “Lupaza, tell him.”

Lupaza nodded confirmation from her place slumped against her husband, Furel. His remaining arm lay loosely around her shoulders, a guard against the night. “I have a nasty little trick that should have the Cardassians regretting setting up their computers here. Two birds with one stone.” The firelight flickered, casting shades of red into her auburn hair. It looked nearly as bright as Kira’s own. “Furel thinks it’s a good idea. Right?”

Furel sighed and didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. His body, tucked unmoving around hers, spoke for him. Kira watched the leaping flames and wished she had that kind of warmth instead.

Lupaza’s next words went out to the group in general, though her eyes lingered on Kira’s for a moment longer than they needed to. “And you can’t tell me you aren’t curious to see what kind of alien they pulled out of that box.”

“I’m not,” Klin volunteered, but Ornak smacked his arm before he could elaborate. Kira would have smiled if she had the energy. Instead, she wrapped her threadbare coat tighter around her as Ornak and Klin settled, their hands twined together. Kira’s spoon rattled against the empty bowl in her lap.

“We barely have enough food for ourselves!” Mobara protested, and Latha agreed, vocally. Their voices rose for a moment, but when nobody else spoke with their cause, they sat back, shadows cast harsh on their faces. The darkness filled in some of the gaunt edges in their faces, but it didn’t bring any kindness with it.

Shakaar waited for all signs of a tussle to settle down before he said, dispassionate, “The Prophets sent us that fragment of alien technology for a reason. If it's fulfilled its purpose now, as opposed to in the last hundred years when we held it, then we need to figure out why.” He cast a stick into the fire, the fresh needles popping. Lorit flinched, and everyone pretended they hadn’t seen it. “Nerys?”

Kira traced out a diagram by her knees — Trentin Fala hadn’t been able to get them more than a glance at the schematics, but that had been enough. When you were hungry enough, desperate enough, you didn’t tend to forget things that could hand you revenge. “We’ve got the entrances here and here.” She drew out a scattering of dots, the dampness in the earth cold beneath her finger. “And there are five guards. Two at each entrance and one inside, watching the prison. Lupaza and I will go for the prison block for the alien and computer access. I can deal with guards while she works.” She ground the spot representing the prison guard deeper into the soil. "Sound good?”

“No,” Klin said plaintively, but it was such a weak attempt that even his husband didn’t bother to prod him. He knew his duty. They all did. Once with the Resistance, always with the Resistance. Even without the threat of Cardassian retribution looming over their heads, it wouldn’t have been any other way.

“Good,” Shakaar said. The midnight wind lifted his hair and bit into Kira’s side. She was too cold to shiver. Shakaar stood, and though his feet had to be aching after trekking through the forests all day, nothing about him betrayed it. Kira wished for that peace, and for the support Klin and Ornak lent each other as they stood, never leaving each other’s touch. “Get a good sleep. We’ll be heading out tomorrow night."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Klin and Ornak had been in position for a long while by the time Kira and Lupaza arrived. Lupaza wavered above Kira in the bushes, her hair twisted into a careful braid that didn’t leave the base of her skull. Nothing to grab. Kira’s was shorn short for the same reason, and she could feel her hair standing on end.

Intellectually, she was used to this: how to go in and hit the Cardassians, how to get out, how to kill them. Even after a lifetime, her body was slow to understand. Kira could feel her pulse thrumming through the pads of her fingers tight against her disruptor, quick and wild as a tyrfox. Her heart beat on, lit by the hate and rage that had built her. Just a little longer now. Then she would get a go at _them_.

The Cardassians always spat at being called _spoonheads_ or _cardies_. They hated those names, epithets from the old war with the Federation. Maybe if someone was soft and happy at home, they’d have enough energy for that kind of pettiness. Kira didn’t. They were Cardassians, and that was all. They didn’t deserve any other name. Their true one told her enough.

Lupaza glanced back at Kira, moonlight crashing off her scraped-back hair, and mouthed _now_. At the side of the outpost, Klin and Ornak crept from the shrubs, keeping low and out of sight of the still-standing guards, lazy from a quiet day of subjugation. Then, between one blink and the next, the guards were on the ground, and two friendlier shaped shadows took their place. The sharp shape of the Cardassian disruptors rested easy in their hands and hearts.

Kira skated down the hill, mud slipping under her boots and splattering against her calves. They would track it in, but it wouldn’t matter. Who else would be sabotaging Dahkur Province’s Cardassian outpost? The Resistance was planetwide. Prophets, some had spread out to the stars. This place was _theirs_ , and the Cardassians were starting to realize that.

Klin and Ornak followed them into the compound, their boots carefully freed of mud. Though Shakaar didn’t mind if the Cardassians knew who had carried out this assault, he didn’t want to let on how many of them there were. The element of surprise was all they had on their side, sometimes. Most times.

The alien was quiet in the cell as they entered. The guard was talking at her, the sneering, prodding tone of a soldier irritated at trying to move a highland _batos_. The alien had her arms wrapped around her stomach, her legs tucked up in front of her so she could rest her head on her knees. The delicate bend of her neck was decorated in a thick line of spots — other than that, she could have been Bajoran. Kira hadn’t known what to expect, but the knot in her stomach loosened at her first sight of the alien. If the alien had been reptilian, closer to the Cardassians than to them… she would still be rescued, but it would have been harder on all of them.

Kira clubbed down the guard while he was occupied taunting the prisoner. She made quick work of securing him, and kept a foot planted on him until Lupaza moved in to take her place at the computer. His chest rose and fell as they manoeuvred, and Kira’s lips stayed twisted and sour. It would be a waste of a shot to kill him, now that they were already in, and they could hardly spare the noise. Even still-

The force field shimmered bright and fell away. Lupaza elbowed Kira away from the console to clear more room to work, and Kira started toward the cell. The alien looked up, startled, and Kira spotted a second difference in her unnaturally flat nose. Alien. Definitely an alien. How had an alien stored herself in a box for over a hundred years?

“I don’t expect you to understand me,” Kira told her, “but we need to get out of here.”

The alien hesitated, hands braced on the floor by her sides. Kira waved towards the open doorway between the defunct force field emitters as emphatically as she could. She had left the doorway of the cell clear on purpose. Kira knew all too well what it was like to feel trapped. “Come _on_ ,” Kira hissed.

Outside, a disruptor fired once, twice, and fell silent. Footsteps clattered on the other side of the building, the guards coming through to help their fellows. There was a loud thump, a short screech, and silence. When Kira looked back at the alien, she was clambering to her feet, wincing, her decision made. The pain written over her face solidified Kira’s first impression, that she was as much a victim to the Cardassians as Bajor had been. Whatever the Cardassians had done to get her here, it hadn’t been kind.

Lupaza laughed at the computer terminal, quick and vicious, and then said, “Got it. Let’s get moving!”

The alien said something, the sound reminiscent of a question. Then she swore, the implication obvious by her tone, and before Kira could try to figure out what she was up to, she was out the door. Now that the alien was on her feet Kira realized how tall she was — taller than most of the Resistance cell. Taller than most Cardassians, even. Before Kira could shout after her, she’d returned, cradling a pile of metal that might have once been a piece of technology.

“Go!” Lupaza shouted, and Kira grabbed the alien’s arm and ran. Something clattered to the ground, but the alien shoved the rest of the tech down her shirt and kept running, though her face was twisted with pain. Her arm burned under Kira’s grasp.

They managed to get past the cramped guards on the floor, but the Cardassians at the door had recovered. Backup sprayed the hall with disruptor fire. Lupaza settled against the corner with her face set in stone, her jury-rigged disruptor coughing short blasts. Kira kept her body over the alien, as useless as that was with the difference in their height, and fired blind around the corner. Someone fell, and she thanked the Prophets. _Two more to go._

She didn’t know if they’d be able to make it— where _were_ Klin and Ornak? Kira's heart pounded in her throat, running in time with the disruptor fire. The din crept closer with each moment, Kira’s throat closing up with the sickening smell of charred flesh drifting down the close quarters of the hallway.

The alien muttered something, the same thing as before. A curse, and then something more. She took a step back from Kira, pulling pieces out of her shirt and fiddling with them. Kira leaned just far enough around the corner to target, but the Cardassian moved just in time and it went glancing off his arm. The alien muttered something more, dark head bent over the metal in her hands. A sharp edge followed her words, much more urgent sounding than Bajoran, though it wasn’t as twined with vowels as Kardasi. Then she tossed her piece of tech out, arcing wide. Kira ducked behind the corner, and was glad she did. Whatever the alien had thrown went up in a huge flash, accompanied by screams and thumps.

Kira stared at her, ears ringing. The alien shrugged. _Don’t look at me_ , she seemed to say. _It wasn’t anything extraordinary._

Then they were sprinting again, and Kira’s legs and lungs burned with a raging fire. She ignored it, tugging the alien after her, her hand gripping Kira’s in a bone-crushing sort of way.

Klin and Ornak’s footsteps thudded in behind them, and Kira climbed the hill as fast as she could, her hands digging into the soft earth, her holstered pistol slamming against her leg. It was still hot, though hopefully nothing had fused. Cardassian technology was shoddy, thrown together and meant to be disposable. They had to restock their weaponry more often, granted, but anything the Resistance stole had an expiration date.

Or it did, until they figured out how to keep the things running. Mostly.

More of the foreign language rippled behind her, the alien starting another sentence and then apparently remembering she couldn’t be understood and trailing off into a curse. Kira found her hand again, and hauled her through the dark paths to the campsite.

It took an age to reach. They couldn’t head directly there — not after what they had pulled. They lead their pursuers on a roundabout course that tipped them into a ravine, then tracked off a significant distance away before balancing on a steep stone ledge, their boots dripping but clean from the river. The alien balanced with ease, always a half-step behind Kira. She had realized by now there wasn’t much point in talking. It had to have been a sobering realization.

Kira didn’t know why she’d assumed that the alien would understand them, but it was a hole in their otherwise sound plan. How would they communicate? The Cardassians had obviously been doing some talking with her.

Translators. Of course. Those damned translators. It was the one thing Lupaza wasn’t able to crack. She was good with technology, but the translators were a kind she hadn’t seen anywhere else. It was built off a true language, not a computer binary or trinary system. After so many years under the Occupation, near every Bajoran was bilingual, but that didn’t mean they were fluent. The Cardassians took a special pleasure in making sure the full complexity of their language remained beyond the grip of the native population.

It helped them laugh to themselves at night, all coddled in their stolen houses and fires. Those insignificant Bajorans couldn’t understand the majesty of their language. What petty, unintelligent things.

They reached the camp as the sun reached the horizon, spilling gentle yellow light over the sloping surface of Dahkur. Shakaar was waiting by the smouldering fire pit, plucking shards of charcoal out with his bare, scarred fingers. He looked up when they tramped in, the alien still hovering behind Kira like she was stuck in Kira’s orbit. Klin and Ornak saluted and headed off to their tent, exhausted. They’d done the heavy lifting, and Kira didn’t begrudge them that, though her feet hurt so much she could barely believe they were still attached.

Kira, however, as the lead on the mission, had the responsibility to make the report.

Shakaar brushed his hands off on his trousers, which didn’t make much of a difference in the appearance of either. “How did it go?”

Kira’s back straightened, though she knew she’d never reach Shakaar’s height. Her neck ached with the stress of being alert all day. “Easy, as these things go. We led them on a tour off the Kenmid Cliffs.” A smile cut itself across her face. “I don’t think they’ll be coming for us anytime soon.”

“And her?” Shakaar gestured to the alien. In her peripheral vision, Kira could see the alien leaning against a tree, massaging the back of her calf. She’d managed to hit it off a fallen tree, somehow. The alien wasn’t nearly as soft as Kira had expected, but she had been a city dweller in the time before she’d landed on Bajor. “What did you find out?”

“Alien,” Kira said flatly. “She doesn’t speak anything we recognize, though the Cardassian translators evidently worked on her.” She spared another glance for the alien, and got caught in her grey eyes. Though she couldn’t have understood their words, Kira got the distinct impression she was aware of the subject of their conversation. “She cobbled together some flash bomb that took the backup when they tried to storm us. She was given the full measure of Cardassian hospitality, too.” That famous hospitality was something everyone in the Resistance was familiar with. “I think we can trust her.”

Shakaar watched Kira for a moment, like the Prophets had written an answer in the sweat across her brow. His darkened fingers tapped against his leg for a moment, then he let out a deep sigh and nodded. “She can bunk with you, then.”

“I’ll keep an eye on her.” Kira would have found something else to reassure him with, but the commotion started before she could try.

It happened quickly. Latha Mabrin was still teetering on an edge from being left behind, and Kira should have known better to keep him in close quarters with the newcomer. She swore she’d only turned her back for a moment, but evidently the alien tripped or got too close to Latha, and the reaction was swift.

Latha kicked the alien in the stomach. It was a strong kick, the heel of his boot square on the alien’s belly. It was a stupid move. It wouldn’t have mattered on a Cardassian, with all the armour, and even a Bajoran wouldn’t have been as affected as he would have liked — too much give — but the alien took it hard. She seemed nearly startled, stumbling back and tripping over thin air before she and her tall limbs tumbled to the dirt.

Latha went after her again, but Furel hauled him off, his arm tight against Latha’s neck, his face reddening even further. Kira rounded on him, and though Latha had cracked jokes about her height before, he seemed cowed under the weight of her rage. “What were you _doing_?” She stabbed a finger at the alien, curled around her stomach in the dirt. “Latha Mabrin, she’s an _alien_. We don’t know what could hurt her. After all this, you’re willing to kill her?"

“An alien doesn’t have any business here,” he sneered, but then he caught sight of Lupaza, glaring at him like he’d touched one of her precious computers. The whole cell was gathered around the alien in the centre of camp, waiting for this to turn one way or the other. “She isn’t one of us! She-"

“And she clearly isn’t one of the Cardassians, or she wouldn’t have been as battered as she was.” Kira turned on her heel, done with the conversation. Adrenaline still ran in her veins, and maybe that was what gave her enough nerve to turn her back on the tussle and crouch over the alien. “Are you alright?”

Kira knew that the alien wouldn’t be able to understand her words, but the tone was enough. The words were more for the people around them, if they were wondering where Kira stood on the issue. Not that the alien should have been a Prophet’s-damned _issue_ , after the trouble they’d gone through to rescue her.

The alien still had one arm curved protectively over her belly, and for a moment Kira wondered if she was pregnant. But alien or not, she wasn’t cradling the right spot. It was farther up than a baby could have been, just below the curve of her ribcage. She took Kira’s hand, standing without much effort. Well, much more effort than moving had been before this whole ordeal had started. Her shoulders bore more pain than the simple kick, but Kira had already known there was something off about her.

“Come on,” Kira said, and put a hand on the alien’s elbow. “We’re going to get you some food.” They didn’t have much to spare, as Mobara had so kindly pointed out earlier, but they had enough. Being held prisoner by the Cardassians wasn’t an easy thing, as Bajor itself could attest to.

The alien followed Kira to her tent, an improvised thing that only protected Kira from the gazes of her fellow resistance members. The alien ate the dried hasperat quickly, and gulped down the rest of Kira’s canteen of water. It was easy enough to refill, but at the moment, Kira had no intention of leaving the tent until morning. Her breathing had turned slow and heavy with exhaustion at the sight of her bedroll.

“Kira,” she said, and placed a palm flat on her chest. That would be easy enough to start with. “Kira Nerys.”

The alien’s eyes, an intelligent grey, watched her steadily for a moment. Then she said, easily, “Jadzia.” Her mouth quirked up at the corner, like something was hilarious. Her hand on her belly twitched. “Dax.”

Kira couldn’t help but smile too. She was tired and hungry and she ached with a passion, but at least the mission hadn’t been a failure. Lupaza had detonated something in their computers that would leave the local liaison office useless, and they had rescued the alien from the box. “Nice to meet you, Dax.”

“ _Jadzia_ Dax,” the alien said, her smile blooming into a full grin. There was something amusing about the situation to her somehow, and that was infectious. She said something in her own tongue, friendly sounding, and ended with “Kira.”

“Jadzia Dax.” Kira didn’t know what kind of policy her people had with names, which one was the personal and which the familial, but it wasn’t as if she could ask. Instead, she brushed a finger over the crinkles on her nose. “Bajoran.” Her hand brushed the hard earth beneath them, and came up smudged. “Bajor.”

She waited and watched. Jadzia blinked at her, her thoughts near-audibly whirring. Her hand moved to cup the spots on her neck. Up close, they were even more intricate that Kira had realized, like something she’d find on an exotic hara cat. “Trill.” She waved at the sky, her grin lopsided. “Trill.”

Kira’s pleased smile spread. She was reminded of one of the old poems, by someone long before the Occupation. They had dreamt of the stars and the people in them; the simple pleasures and peace they would bring. It had been the dream of most of the Bajoran people until the Cardassians arrived.

Maybe this was their chance. Maybe the Prophets really _had_ sent that box of alien technology down from the skies.

With exaggerated movements, Kira settled herself on her sleeping roll, and spread out another blanket on the ground beside her. It was what passed for a bed in these parts. “Goodnight” she told Jadzia, and wrapped herself her poor excuse of a blanket.

Darkness settled over her fast, but before it did, Kira felt Jadzia curl up beside her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jadzia Dax, alien or not, integrated herself well into the Shakaar Resistance cell. She didn’t complain about the constant watch they had on her. Kira usually had the job, but Lorit or Mobara took up the watch if Kira was busy on an errand for Shakaar. Within days, Jadzia picked up what plants were edible, and often came back to the camp with a larger haul than Latha, which irritated him to no end.

Jadzia muttered to herself sometimes in her own language, late at night, when only Kira could hear her. She refrained from speaking it during the day, mostly because she seemed to be aware of how at edge it put them. In the meantime, her Bajoran was coming along as well as could be expected. By the end of the first week Jadzia knew all their names, along with the word for ‘this’. She used it for everything she was pointing at, which all but became a joke.

Jadzia mostly spoke aloud when she was working. Only Kira, Lupaza, and Shakaar was aware of her side project. After the incident on the first day, their leader had deemed the more sensitive information about the alien dangerous. Latha was volatile enough without harbouring the suspicion that the alien was going to blow them up.

Jadzia had created a makeshift candle with crushed barrowbugs and burned it in the corner, where the smoke wouldn’t drift over a sleeping Kira. She worked near-tirelessly on the handful of technology she’d stolen from the Cardassian prison. After a few days and a stilted, silent negotiation, Lupaza had given her the most shattered of the translators. To Kira’s untrained eye, she seemed confident with the technology. That was a good thing. Kira wasn’t the same kind of suspicious as Latha Mabrin, but she knew better than to wholeheartedly trust that Jadzia wouldn’t explode the tent when she was sleeping.

A week passed. The patrols had increased, and so Shakaar had them pack up and move to a clearing on the far side of the forest. Intelligence from the villagers told them that the patrols had been looking for the alien. Gul Dukat himself had been brought in to the area to look for her. Apparently she was somewhat of a popular figure back on her home planet, or something close to that. There was something very hush-hush about it, so much that Dukat had deported the surviving members of the guard that had let Jadzia escape. He was looking for a promotion, as he always was, and that made him dangerous. Nothing was worse than a Cardassian that wanted something.

A day after they had received that news, Jadzia was working later into the night than she usually did. Derna and Jeraddo shone in mirrored crescents in the sky, visible through the thin sheeting of Kira’s tent. It had rained the night before, but this night was clear of clouds, and most everything had dried.

“Jadzia,” Kira said, with no small amount of exasperation. She had gotten used to sleeping next to the alien, back to back in the night to share warmth. It had been a while since she had been able to share space with another person, and Kira hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it. “Bed.”

She knew Jadzia understood that word, but the alien just held up a finger and shook her head. Kira huffed, but gave her a moment. _One_ moment.

“Aha!” There was a click, unnaturally loud, and Kira sat upright in surprise. Wildlife skittered away outside the tent, squeaking with a vengeance. “That’s more like it,” Jadzia said, and her grin lit up big enough Kira was surprised it wasn’t casting light. “Hello there, Kira!”

Kira blinked at her. Lupaza hadn’t been able to do anything with the tiny pile of tech they had stored away in the years she’d been collecting it, but Jadzia had whipped up what must have been a translator in a few short days. That was impressive. She’d had real training, real knowledge, completely unlike anything the Resistance had been able to cobble together.

“Now, I was hoping you’d be able to help me figure out where and when I am.” She waved an expansive hand around, the sort of movement that reminded Kira of how different she was, and not just in species. Dax wasn’t used to being careful with her movements the way Kira was. She wasn’t used to not drawing attention, not wasting energy. She was… softer. It made Kira’s heart take a tumble. “The last thing I remember before I was in that damned Cardassian cell was my shuttle going down.” Her laugh was the same as it always had been, but now that Kira could understand her words, it seemed to hold an ocean of meaning. “I knew relations between our planets were strained, but not _that_ strained."

If the Occupation had given Kira one thing, it was the ability to react well to unexpected situations. “As far as we’re aware, a hundred years ago you... fell from the sky.” It seemed absurd, all of a sudden, to be explaining to the very real person in front of her that for over a century she had been an alien relic. “We knew there was data on it, and we found some scraps of metal of a similar composition in the vicinity, but we’ve never been a galaxy-faring kind of people.”

Jadzia nodded along, like that had all made sense. She was playing with the little piece of tech she’d cobbled together as she did, examining the solder points with a critical eye. “It’s a recent invention, or it was.” Her eyes flickered up to catch with Kira’s, and Kira could see the pain starting to blossom in them. “Wait. A hundred years?”

“More than,” Kira confirmed. Her stomach sunk. She wasn’t a stranger to losing her family — prophets, she’d never stop missing Reon and Pohl — but to lose everyone she had ever known without warning… She sent up a silent prayer to the Prophets for Jadzia. “I’m sorry.”

Jadzia shrugged. “Not the first time I’ve lost everything,” she said blithely. “Though it’s usually not so… far away and permanent.” She didn’t seem to think that needed any sort of explanation.

Kira waited, letting Jadzia gather her thoughts. The Prophets taught patience, even though Kira didn’t always listen.

Jadzia set away the technology and folded her hands in her lap. “In my timeline it was a recent invention. A parachute of sorts. If the shuttle systems registered an oncoming fatal crash, they’d grab the pilot and store their pattern in a shielded lock box. When the sensors pick up a safe situation, they were supposed to rematerialize the stored person.” Dax grimaced. “Either the prototype should never have been approved or the shock of the crash fused something."

Kira was all too familiar with useless technology fusing on her. She crossed her arms across her chest, collecting the blanket tighter around her. She felt suddenly vulnerable, now that she could share words and ideas with her erstwhile bedmate. “How do you know they got you out whole?”

“Well, I’d likely be dead if I didn’t come out whole.” She shuddered. It wasn’t a delicate movement. “And anyway, everything important is here.” Her hand went, nearly unconsciously, to her stomach. “Though I suppose there’s always the chance I rearranged something unimportant. My hair _did_ seem shorter."

Kira didn’t like beating around the bush. “Are you pregnant?”

Jadzia stared. Then she followed Kira’s eyes down to her stomach, and she full-on laughed. “I can see how you’d think that, but no.” Her eyes sparkled. “It’s complicated.”

Leaves scuffled outside their tent, and Furel poked his head in, his empty sleeve untied and swinging, like he’d barely had time to jam it on before running over. “Who are you-“ His eyes caught the spray of wires and appropriated technology in Jadzia’s lap, and he’d obviously overheard enough from Lupaza to know what she’d created. “Oh.”

Jadzia winked at him. “Aren’t you up late, Furel? Leaving poor Lupaza all alone?” Somehow, in the short amount of time she’d been in their resistance cell, she had managed to dig up every shiny piece of gossip their cell _had_. Jadzia’s nosiness transcended language. “Kira and I will be wrapping up soon. I didn’t mean to stay up this late, but I’d rather be done now rather than later.”

Furel’s brow did something complicated, but he didn’t object. “Keep it down if you don’t want to wake anyone else. I figure this is the sort of thing you want to explain once everyone’s well rested.”

Jadzia smiled, slow and wide and clever. “You read my mind.”

Furel shot a warning look at Kira, but withdrew, a rush of smoke floating out with him. Jadzia snuffed out her candle before the smoke could fill the tent again, dropping their tent into darkness.

They lay for a moment, back to back, sharing warmth. Kira could feel Jadzia breathing, just a little too fast to be considered asleep. “Can you read minds?” she asked, and bumped her cold toes against Jadzia’s legs so the alien would know she was joking.

Jadzia laughed, her body shaking against Kira’s. Kira’s heart gave a quick-double beat. “No. I’ve heard of a species that can, but they’re on the far side of the quadrant.” Dax sighed, and the tension fell away from the both of them. Her voice was melodic, now that Kira understood her. “I’m going to switch the translator off, now. The power cell was tricky to hook in.”

“Oh.” Kira hadn’t thought of that. She should’ve expected that. There were never any easy solutions. Easy anything, really. “Well. Goodnight.”

Jadzia reached for something, the line of her legs pressing snug against Kira, then paused. “Say it again in a moment. I want to know how to speak it.”

“Alright.”

There was a click, and Jadzia settled back against Kira. The thin fold of blanket that had been tucked between them before was gone. “Goodnight,” Kira said, to the wall of the tent.

“Goodnight,” Jadzia said, clumsily. Kira let herself grin, knowing it was invisible to her bedmate. “Goodnight, Kira.”

“Nerys.” It had been long enough. Though the rest of the cell might not have entirely trusted Jadzia, Kira did. She knew how to read people. Jadzia read as nothing but a gift to all of them. To her.

“Goodnight, Nerys.”

Sleep came easily, after that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Furel had evidently spread the news about the translator before Kira and Dax woke. Though Klin and Ornak were busy mooning over each other at the covered fire pit, everyone else zeroed in on the two of them. Kira’s skin prickled under the force of their combined gazes, but Jadzia shed the scrutiny with ease.

“This,” Jadzia said, and shook the machine gently, the metal clacking, and made a sound that approximated a phaser refusing to fire. She held up a finger, an unspoken _wait_ , and bent her head over it.

“She has to turn it on,” Kira said. Lorit deflated almost visibly, and Latha snorted. Kira glared.“The power won't last forever.”

“Exactly,” Jadzia said. Everyone jumped. Kira had missed the sound of the translator switching on. Something other than surprise washed over her at the sound of Jadzia’s voice, a warmth that warmed her as much as having Jadzia back-to-back with her in the night. “I’ll be keeping it off for the most part during the day. I don’t know long it’ll last, so it’s best to be careful.”

Lupaza spoke before anyone else could. “How, exactly, did you get it to work?”

Kira could have sworn that the translator had stopped working with Jadzia’s next, long words, but Lupaza was nodding along like it made sense. Lupaza crossed her arms, considering. “So you’ve had contact with the Cardassians before, then?"

Jadzia grimaced. “We’ve had contact, sure, but we aren’t friends."

Shakaar focused at that. “We?”

Dax gestured to her spots. “The Trill. And the Federation, which is a larger, multi-planet organization with a set of discrete policies.” That was information that she hadn’t shared with Kira and it stung. “Trill is a member world. Most of the ships in Starfleet are manned by humans, but we don’t mind. We’ve got our own ships if we ever felt the need to go poking around.”

“Starfleet?” Mobara crossed his arms. A muscle in his jaw jumped. “You’re from _that_ Federation?”

Jadzia blinked. “What did they do?” She sounded more tired than surprised.

Kira realized she’d clenched her fists when her hands started to ache. “ _That_ Federation refused to help us, even as the Cardassians gained a stranglehold on our planet.” Her voice grew mocking. “It was an internal affair. Who cares if the Cardassians decide to enslave us? We aren’t important enough to-"

“Kira,” Shakaar said warningly. It was a reprimand, and everyone knew it. Kira spun and stalked off to a short distance, her fingers aching in their fists. Mobara followed her lead, stalking past her and throwing himself into his tent. From behind Kira, Shakaar cleared his throat. “I’m sure you’re aware of their Prime Directive policy.”

“It certainly has its merits in many situations,” Jadzia admitted. “Though in something like this…” Kira took a deep breath, fighting down her rage. It tasted like embers and rotting moba fruit. The policy of the Federation wasn’t Jadzia’s fault, and she hadn’t tried to stay out of the conflict here. “I haven’t always agreed with it.”

Latha spat something vicious and stormed off past Kira into the forest, the flap of his collection bag swinging wildly. Somehow, the sight of the ugly look on his face swept the last of her unmanageable temper away. Kira took one more breath, and turned back to the group. Jadzia was watching her with concern, but Kira shrugged it off with stiff shoulders.

“…the Cardassians have been increasing patrols,” Shakaar continued. He sent a warning look at Kira when he saw how close she was standing to Jadzia, but she ignored him. She wasn’t standing close to Jadzia to attack her. She wanted the solidity and evenness of Jadzia to leak over to her. “I’d say they were still looking for you, but it’s been an age. I’d have assumed they thought we killed you.” He paused, his eyes flickering over the still-disturbed leaves where Latha had departed. “Is there any reason they would want you?”

He was searching for things other than the obvious. Kira knew the Cardassians thought they owned Jadzia. They were responsible for rematerializing her from that storage box. Knowing them, Kira was surprised Jadzia hadn’t had the _Property of Cardassia_ brand applied. Maybe they hadn’t thought of it by the time she’d escaped.

Jadzia shook her head. “Trill isn’t an insignificant member of the Federation, but we aren’t one of the big powers, either. We have our secrets, of course, but no more than the Vulcans or Tellarites."

“Secrets?” Shakaar didn’t sound pleased. The morning light hung around him in a cloak, rendering his suspicion in gold and purple.

Jadzia waved him off. “Nothing that would be relevant to… Oh.” She winced, then spoke a word the translator refused to translate. “Of course.”

“Dax?” Kira nudged her arm.

The alien just snorted at that. “I guess there isn’t much of a point in keeping a centuries old secret,” Jadzia said, and then sighed. She tapped her stomach. “I’m myself, the humanoid standing in front of you… but also someone else. A symbiont lives in me, here, and it’s yay big,” and she indicated with her hands, a long and lithe shape. “Dax. I’m Jadzia and Dax combined. That’s why they’re looking for me.”

Pain flickered in Jadzia’s eyes. “I’m old. Hundreds of years. I know a lot. Dax lived a lot of interesting lives. From what I caught, they were more interested in getting Dax out of the safe box than Jadzia, but it tends to be difficult to separate the symbiont’s life signs from the host if you don’t have experience, even with a scanner.”

 _Not the first time I’ve lost everything_ , Kira remembered. How many hosts had… Dax been through? Was Jadzia disposable? Just another body to walk around in?

No. She couldn’t have been unimportant. There was so much life in her, the kind that Kira wished she had in herself. She hadn’t been worn down, even after, Prophets, hundreds of years. “Why?” Awkwardly, Kira mimed out the proportions of the Dax creature again. “It doesn’t sound like your… you would be able to speak much in that form."

Jadzia grimaced. “The Cardassians never much struck me as the overly intelligent type. I bet you anything they would have tried to pick one of their guls to host Dax. It would have worked for a day or two, I’ll give them that.” She lowered her hand to her side, like she’d just realized she was still tracing her long fingers over where her symbiont rested. “The host and symbiont are equal in these things. It might have worked. I am _Jadzia_. Jadzia Dax wouldn’t tell them, but Zarale Dax may.”

Dread wormed its way through Kira’s system, an alien lifeform all of its own. “Zarale? Are you sure about that?”

“I can’t say the translator was perfect, but yes.” Jadzia looked back and forth between Kira and Shakaar, though her gaze lingered longest on Kira. “Why? They were having him brought in, I think. To deal with my 'special case'.” Her voice went quiet and deep, and she didn’t look away from Kira. “Thank you for getting me out of there. I don’t know if I said that before. You saved my life. My future. Who I am.”

“That’s the goal of our resistance, though we always intended it to be on a larger scale than the individual.” Shakaar’s voice was dry. "Not to say you’re unimportant, Dax, but we have bigger things to think about. If what you’re saying is right, we have a chance to strike a decisive blow."

“If gul Zarale is here…” Hope sprung up in Kira’s chest. It had been a while since she’d felt it so strongly. Not since they’d liberated Gallitep. “He killed Li Nalas. There’s more than one of us that wants to get our hands on him. If we can get word out-“

“No.” Shakaar’s voice was unyielding. The husbands glanced up from the fire pit, but Kira glared until they looked away. “We can’t get word out of this. If they find out on their own, fine, but we’d be seen if we tried to get a man out of here.” He gestured to the forest, in the opposite direction Latha had headed. “The patrols, Nerys. We can’t hit gul Zarale if he gets wind that we’re coming.”

“But-“ Prophets, Zarale was a murderer. Didn’t Li Nalas deserve a horde of his fellow Bajorans descending on his killer? Kira’s heart ached. She knew Shakaar was right, and she would never do it, run wild, but it hurt. Everything about this Prophets-damned occupation hurt. “I know. I know.” She set her shoulders back. “What do we do, then? We’re one of the smallest cells, and we hardly had enough firepower to crash a small outpost. We won’t be able to get near a gul without getting killed first.”

Silence fell. Kira loosened her fingers from a fist to tap lightly against her leg. Dax shifted her weight from one long leg to another. Her attention was solely on Kira, which Kira found disconcerting. It was Shakaar who kept them alive. Kira was just… She didn’t even know. Second in command would be a stretch.

“If I could ask something?” Dax turned her attention to Shakaar now, but he wasn’t as flustered by it as Kira had been. "If the worst happens, if Dax does find a new, Cardassian host..."  Jadzia smiled something wistful and wrong, an ancient creature and a young woman all in one. "Whatever part of me that would be Jadzia would want you to take me out. I'm dangerous, if I wasn't me. Ordinarily," she said, like it was funny, "I would protect the symbionts at all costs and I _would_ , but my planet thinks I'm long gone. I'm dead to history. If Jadzia is killed, whatever comes next isn't anything worth surviving for."

Kira couldn’t begin to comprehend that. To have the knowledge that you were only half of a larger self, one that could could be placed into a larger puzzle that could be the direct opposite of your current was chilling. She shivered. Whatever benefits of long life a symbiont obviously gave Dax, Kira wouldn’t have been able to live with the knowledge of how changeable she could be.

“Of course.” Shakaar was curt. “Is there anything else you need to tell us?”

“More about the translator,” Lupaza said. She’d been silent and unnoticeable for most of the conversation, but dropped the stillness easily. “Later. But we’re going to talk about that.”

Jadzia granted her a smile. “Of course.”

Kira crossed her arms. The movement felt defensive, but it was too late to loosen her stance without looking awkward. “Anything more about the Federation that our tiny, backwards world should know?” She could taste the bitterness on her tongue, but there was no point in pretending it wasn’t there.

Jadzia shrugged. “Not really. As long as this remains an internal affair between two non-Federation societies, they can’t intervene.”

Kira frowned at her. “Don’t you count as interference?”

Jadzia shook her head. “I can do what you command. I’m here with no way out. I’ve chosen a side, so to speak. As long as I don’t do much more than any other Bajoran could in this circumstance, it’s fair game.” She pulled a face. “That’s what I’ll say if they ever come to fetch me, at least. I can’t exactly stay out of this, can I?” Her lips tightened. “And even if I could, I don’t think I’d want to."

Kira’s heart skipped a beat at the mention of the Federation coming in to scoop Jadzia up. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. It was hard to, the way she lived. Tomorrow wasn’t a guarantee. Prophets, there was about an even chance she would be killed before sundown.

But- “Hold on.” Kira turned on Jadzia. “Say that again.”

“I can’t exactly stay out of this, can I.” This time it was less of a question.

Kira was moving before she’d thought it through, pacing back and forth across the dry earth. Halfway to the fire pit she spun on her heel and stormed back up to Dax and Shakaar. Lupaza watched, leaning against a tree. Her dire expression looked so similar to Furel’s that Kira nearly lost a step.

“Dax,” Kira said. “Wouldn’t kidnapping you, torturing you, and planning to remove your symbiont for implantation in one of their own in order to gain an advantage in a private war be considered interference?” She heard the smile in her voice before she felt it, ferocious and full of teeth. “Especially someone with your history.” Anybody would have enemies after three hundred years. Somebody with the élan of Dax would have had _dozens_.

Shakaar made to speak, but neither Jadzia or Kira heard him. Jadzia was smiling, a mirror to Kira’s own. “You know, I think you might be onto something there. It might be pretty embarrassing for the Federation to learn that one of their most revered diplomats wasn’t missing, but prisoner.”

“And even more mortifying if they learned an antagonistic species that they ignored had plans to violate something sacred to her culture,” Kira finished. Even Shakaar was beginning to look pleased now. “Bringing in and abusing such a person just might be enough to allow them to stop beating around the bush.”

“That might be an exaggeration of their bureaucratic capabilities,” Jadzia admitted, “but it would certainly get them to do _something_. I can’t think that the issue of Bajor has been entirely ignored by the Federation. They’re likely trying to solve it gently and diplomatically.”

And there was the very large possibility that the Federation would swoop in and take Cardassia’s place on Bajor, but for the moment Kira couldn’t bring herself to care. It didn’t do to shear a _batos_ before the summer came.

“All right,” Shakaar said. Kira subsided. He looked less severe than he had before, but no less stern. “You’ve given us a lot to think about.” He directed his next words to Dax. “Thank you.”

Jadzia swept into a fancy little bow. Her hand returned to her waist, where the translator hung. “Anything I can do.” It sounded genuine. “Now, I think it’s time for me to conveniently go gather some moba fruit.”

Shakaar smiled, something more surprising than anything else that had happened that day. “I hope you find lots. They’re Klin’s favourite."

Jadzia clicked off her translator, said, “This way,” and headed off into the forest. Privately, Kira hoped she would run into Latha. All healed up and without the element of surprise, Jadzia would be able to give better than she got.

“You really trust her, Nerys.” Lupaza nodded at Jadzia’s retreating back. “I haven’t seen you like that around someone since-“

“Lupaza, I trust her.” Kira didn’t flush, but it was close. “That’s all.”

Shakaar grunted. “And you’re sure she’s not a Cardassian plant?”

Kira shook her head. “Their medical technology is impressive, but flawed.” She raked a hand through her hair. “I braided her hair for her a week ago, and checked the side of her forehead. Cardassians have an artery there. She didn’t.” Kira had helped Jadzia with her hair since, but that was for its own sake, not searching her for Cardassian biology.

Lupaza nodded along. “That girl isn’t a Cardassian.” She sniffed. “She may have been able to manipulate their technology, but her technique is different. Nothing like I’ve ever seen before.”

Shakaar sighed, then looked to Kira once more. “You’re _sure_.”

If anything went wrong with Dax after this, it would be Kira’s fault. If she was a plant, or on their side, or ruined their plans, she’d have to take the fall. Ordinarily, Kira wouldn’t have staked herself on anyone else like this, but there was something to Jadzia she hadn’t seen before. “Yes.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Lupaza told Shakaar, and pushed off her tree. “Ornak made some kind of stew for breakfast, if you’re interested.”

Kira’s stomach answered for her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jadzia returned to their camp when the sun was at its zenith, casting every shadow into retreat. Kira saw her flip the translator back on as she approached — a feat, given how much moba fruit she carried. Her lips weren’t stained telltale green, though Kira had remembered a short time after she’d left that the alien hadn’t eaten anything yet.

“I come bearing gifts!” Jadzia called, and even Furel’s face lit up. Klin all but scrambled for her, and Jadzia greeted everyone with gentle, buoyant laughter and started handing the fruit out. “There’s more, if you wanted to go back. I couldn’t carry more, and I figured we should leave a couple there.” She unloaded a few more for Latha, who had slunk back an hour earlier. “For anyone else who may be living in the area.”

“Where were they?” Ornak asked. He had his arm curled around Klin, who was holding his moba fruit like it was tear of the Prophets. “We’ve scoured the forest.”

Jadzia shrugged modestly. “I headed out quite a ways.” Sensing Kira’s look without seeing it, she said, “But not where I knew patrols were. I found a cluster of bushes backed up behind some trees.” Moving carefully, she set the fruit down on a clean cloth next to the fire pit, where a small portion of stew still bubbled against the coals. “I’m curious to see what they taste like, honestly.”

“Good,” Klin said fervently. Juice dripped down his face, and Mobara chuckled and ducked to kiss his husband, his lips coming away stained green. “Sweet, mostly. Really light, though if you make juice you boil it down and it tastes pretty rich.”

Jadzia studied the fruit for another moment, then took a bite. Kira watched with bated breath. Slowly, Dax’s face changed from one of anticipation to one of pleasure. She moaned, a sound that sent a jolt down Kira’s spine. “Oh, that’s good.”

“Have another!” Klin offered, which was akin to him offering to throw himself off the Kenmid Cliffs. Ornak stole one from his hands, and he squeaked. “I mean, we should probably ration them, but you can have one more, since you found them and all.”

If only Kira had thought of sending Jadzia out to collect fruit earlier. Apparently, that was what it took to get the Resistance to trust her. “Hey, do I get one?”

Jadzia tossed her one, lowballing it, and Kira caught it easily. “Of course.” Jadzia stepped closer to Kira, her height anything but intimidating. It was in the way she wore it — unaware of how tall she was, but aware of the effect it could have, and Kira could tell she made an effort not to loom. “Did you make any progress?”

Kira shook her head. “No. Without the manpower, we can’t get close to him.”

Jadzia savoured her next bite of the fruit, and Kira was struck with a flash of an impulse to lick the juice from her lips. She blinked, chased the thought away. Jadzia smacked her lips, then said, “He’s coming to the Dahkur outpost to help in the search for me, right?”

“Right.” Kira watched Jadzia’s lips, appreciating the way they flattened when she was thinking. “Why? You don’t have any better idea of what’s in the compound than we did.” She nudged the alien’s ribs. “We’re the ones who rescued you, remember?”

Dax’s eyebrow floated upwards, but she grinned down at Kira. “Yes, I recall something along those lines.” The smile slipped away with the rest of the moba fruit, and Jadzia clasped her hands behind her back. The action drew her up straight, a more serious figure than she had been before. “I was thinking more about the importance of location. You know the place better than the Cardassians think you do?”

“Yes.” Kira hadn’t told Jadzia about Trentin Fala, but she was more a secret than most other things in the Resistance. Technically, she wasn’t part of their cell. “Are you saying we can do something to the building? Blow it up?”

Jadzia shook her head. “Nothing that direct.” Her chin tucked in, she started to walk, off in the direction of their tent. Kira followed, her curiosity prickling. “What’s their capture policy?”

Kira’s wandering eyes locked with Shakaar’s, and she beckoned him. “Jadzia, hold up a second.” Shakaar joined them, sheltered in Bajor’s trees. “I think we have something worth talking about.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

As the days slipped by, Kira got more and more used to Jadzia being able to communicate with her. With the translator, Dax dropped dry quips that made the hard work of slogging through forest and sprinting through fields seem easier. Without the translator, she’d moved onto short sentences, and her understanding was improving in leaps and bounds.

The plan was progressing well. Dax’s observations were different than theirs, and between their experience in the terrain and her long lives lived, they had more and more of a solid chance for striking gul Zarale down.

Energy was high. Dax had a knack for finding berries — and a knack for reaching nuts on the tall trees. Everyone could tell that they had a chance to deal a huge blow to the Cardassians, too. Even if Zarale had refrained from killing Li Nalas, he had a habit of burning villages that tried to hide Resistance members. Prophets, everyone knew someone who had been killed by Zarale or by his orders.

Patrols continued to increase. Every three days, another transport would rumble in with fresh troops, in ever increasing numbers. Kira had shouted at Klin more than once for leaving moba fruit pits on the ground where the Cardassians would have been able to see them.

She always apologized, but it wasn’t enough. The Cardassians were chasing them farther and farther. Everyone was even more exhausted than usual, and travelling with an extra mouth to feed put a strain on the ability of the area. Kira had no idea how the bigger cells managed to keep themselves alive — there had been nine of them before they’d rescued Jadzia and that had seemed like a crowd. She couldn’t imagine dealing with double that.

Nights were always a respite. Jadzia didn’t spark Kira’s temper as often as the others did. Not to say it didn’t happen — they had almost come to blows over Jadzia burning her candle past midnight, but the worm in the alien's belly gave her a wisdom that prevented fights in the making. After that, they had come to an agreement that Jadzia was only to work on her Shakaar-mandated project until the moons cast enough light to see by, and then she’d either sleep or join Kira for a quick lesson.

“No,” Kira told her, stifling a fatigue-fuelled laugh. She held up a finger again, brandishing it. “One.” She put up another. “Two. Three. Four. Five.”

“One,” Jadzia repeated, with difficulty. Her hair was tucked over one shoulder, a beautiful tangle she braided for bed most nights. Kira loved seeing it down. Though hair that long hadn’t been right for her, it suited Jadzia well. “Two.” There was a pause, long enough that Kira’s lips started to turn up at the edge. Jadzia winced. “Seven?”

Kira’s laughter was enough of a response. She muffled it as much as she could, aware of the tents scattered around them. Kira had complained about Klin and Ornak keeping people up enough that she was sure they would spring on her first thing in the morning. She held up her hand again. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five.” She paused a moment, so Jadzia would know the next words weren’t numbers, and said, “It really isn’t that hard.”

Jadzia stuck her tongue out at Kira. Kira had to clap a hand over her own mouth to stifle her giggles, rocking forwards on her knees to rest her forehead on the alien’s shoulder. She was warm and solid, and when Kira dropped her hand from her mouth, it grazed Dax’s knee. Neither of them moved.

“This,” Jadzia said clearly, “Hard.”

“Mhmm.” Kira didn’t move for a moment more, then straightened. There was a soft look in Dax’s eyes. “Okay. Count.”

Jadzia scowled, but held her hands up. “One.” And she ran them, all the way through to ten, mangled vowels notwithstanding.

“Good.” Kira reached for the translator, intending to click it on, but Jadzia put out a hand to stop her. “Dax?”

Jadzia nodded, and put a hand over the symbiont in her belly. “One. Lela.” She counted with her fingers as she went. “Tobin. Emony. Audrid. Torias. Curzon.” She moved her hand, signalling seven, and pressed it to her chest. “Jadzia.”

The barrowbug candle belched while Kira processed, viewing Jadzia with fresh eyes. Three hundred years, and seven selves. Jadzia must feel like a pebble at the top of a waterfall, one wave from joining its fellows in the depths, the breadth of the world flickering in distorted colour up ahead.

“Jadzia,” Kira echoed. For the first time, she realized that tonight Jadzia was wearing the purple shirt she’d been rematerialized in, painstakingly cleaned and mended. The fabric was heavier and finer than anything Kira had felt before, like twice-spun wool before the dirt worked in. There was something rich about Jadzia's name, entranced in the knowledge she was both only now and always forever. “Jadzia."

This time, when Jadzia reached for the translator, Kira moved in the way, hovering above her on her knees, the short spikes of her hair brushing the rough top of the tent. Kira lowered herself onto Jadzia’s lap, tracing her hands up and down the sleeves, the bottom hem, the collar. In the flickering light of the barrow bug candle, Kira kissed her, Jadzia’s lips chapped against hers. The world faded away, leaving the two of them pressed tight, Jadzia’s teeth scraping on Kira’s lips, Kira following each breath with a kiss hungrier than the last.

The world vanished but for Jadzia. Kira was dizzy with the feeling of Jadzia’s soft, warm skin under her hands, her palms flat against the spots that traced down her sides. Jadzia’s hands were tight against her hips, one braced against her and the other curled under the bottom of her shirt, her touch light but explosive. Kira was hungry for her, for her hands and lips and sighs. She _wanted_ so much that it burned.

Kira followed Jadzia down against their bedroll, stripping their clothes piece by piece. She followed the trail of Jadzia’s spots from her head to her toes and back to her hungry mouth. Jadzia’s mouth was hot on Kira's cheek, her neck, her shoulder, her fingers tracing networks of electricity into Kira’s skin. _Yes_ , Jadzia whispered, _yes_.

When Jadzia’s breath steadied, she moved to the end of the tent and snuffed out the barrow bug candle, the pinpoint light of the moons through the fabric of the tent the only thing illuminating her. Her smile, faintly seen, looked near wicked.

Kira offered a shaking hand and dragged her back down.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Why me?” Kira wasn’t complaining about it, but it was unnerving to be assigned as the point on a mission that didn’t involve blowing things up. Well, at least blowing things up immediately. She didn’t tend to be the person for subtle missions.

“You know Dax best,” Shakaar told her. Mobara poked at the fire, sending up a shower of sparks. “If something goes wrong with the translators, you’re our best bet at making the mission a success."

 _You_ **_know_ ** _her_ , Lorit mouthed, his grin as close to shit-eating as Kira had ever seen it. In case she had somehow missed his point, he made an obscene gesture from his place behind Shakaar’s back. Jadzia, leaning against a tree out of most of the group’s view, made an even more obscene gesture back. Kira reddened.

“Cardassians are more likely to put same-gendered prisoners in the same cell,” Mobara added. His eyes stayed fixed on a log that was close to embers, ash popping and lifting away in the breeze. “The pieces of the force field disruptor will work better when they’re closer."

Lupaza gestured to the technology arrayed around her, glinting in the sun. “And as you can see, I’m busy here.” She tapped the tiny triangle that Kira would be soldering into her earring. “I know what I’m doing. It’ll work, regardless of if you’re in the same cell or not."

Kira shut down a shiver before it could start, the hairs at the back of her neck standing on end. She knew what Lupaza was leaving unsaid: Kira’s lack of technological expertise made her a lot more expendable than Lupaza. “And if it doesn’t work?”

“Then we tried.” Klin blinked at everyone’s stares. Beside him, Ornak grinned into his stew. “What? I’m not just here to go foraging, you know.”

“We know,” Jadzia said, smiling gently. “You’re here for your stew-making skills too. And your hand-to-hand combat is quite impressive.”

Klin puffed up in pride. “Thank you.” Kira spotted Mobara trying not to laugh, and even Latha was hiding his amusement. “See, Dax is the smartest one here."

“If we’re all done patting each other’s backs,” Shakaar said, his voice sharp. Kira never quite forgot the rumours about him, the things he had done alone before forming up their shell, but some days it was easier to see than others. Shakaar was a leader of their cell for a reason. He knew better than anyone what they were up against. “Are there any parts of the plan you’re unsure about, Nerys? We need you to be ready for anything."

Kira shifted from one leg to the next. She could feel eyes on her, Jadzia’s heaviest of all. Under this plan, Kira would be the only thing keeping Dax in Jadzia’s belly where it belonged. “I don’t have any qualms with sending gul Zarale back to Cardassia in pieces, but why, exactly, won’t they just kill me when I arrive?"

“In case you forgot, Nerys, you’re a comfort woman.” Mobara leered, but the expression faded quickly. It wasn’t a joke that could be made. Not much about the Occupation was. “One who belongs to one of gul Dukat’s aides. They’ll hold you until the glinn comes to pick you up.”

“They’ll likely hold off on doing anything to you.” Lorit said, serious for once. Kira caught the angry twist to his expression. It was all too easy to remember where Lorit Mairi, his sister, had spent the last years of her life. “The glinn will want to punish you himself. If they step on his toes, they could find themselves heading for a demotion.”

That was the opposite of an ironclad assurance, but it was better than many that Kira had worked with before. Being in the Resistance meant more often than not they stayed alive by the will of the Prophets. This wasn’t the first operation Kira had been on that would leave her flirting with death.“They won’t just call up the glinn and have him confirm that he doesn’t know me?"

“The Ornathia cell hit their communications off the cliffs, it won’t be fixed for days.” Mobara snorted. “If you aren’t out of there by the time they’re up and running again, you’re doomed anyway.”

Lupaza stacked the Cardassians disruptors she’d deemed too beat up to pass for ones issued to collaborators as she talked. “The way we destroyed their database when we rescued your _friend_ here,” and Kira got another knowing look from Lupaza that she didn’t appreciate, “will help you fly under the radar. They’ll assume your file got wiped along with the rest.”

Kira shivered, but it wasn’t the wind. It was slow in the trees, barely ruffling Lupaza’s curls as it passed. Kira directed her next question to Jadzia, watching with quiet warmth from the other side of the crackling fire. “And you’re sure Zarale will come and see you personally?”

The alien nodded, shadows shifting over the lines of the spots visible on her bare calves. Kira’s memories rose with a mind of their own, trailing sweet fingers down her spine. “He’ll want to know what he’s getting into.” She swept a hand up and down her body, like she was an illustration in a particularly realistic biology book. “He’ll want to know just how alien I am. What he’ll be when he joins with Dax.”

Jadzia’s lips curled in a silent snarl. “He doesn’t understand. Balance with the symbiont is delicate, especially at first. I trained for _years_ in a program that washes out nearly everyone. You don’t just stuff a whole other person into your gut without even knowing if it will take.”

 _Alien, alien, alien_ , the flickering firelight whispered. Kira ignored it, stepping around the fire and her grinning friends to stand at Jadzia’s side. Shakaar looked tired, and a little exasperated, but not surprised.

“We want to move out tomorrow morning, when we’re still confident in the patrol schedules,” Shakaar told them. He fixed his glare on Kira, and she was surprised to see some fondness in it. He would never say it, but he was happy that Kira was happy. “Make sure you get some sleep.” His eyes flicked to Jadzia, next to her. “ _Sleep_."

“We’ll rest,” Jadzia assured him. It wasn’t an answer and everyone knew it. Lorit winked at Kira, so exaggerated that she was able to stick out her tongue before he finished.

Ornak’s spoon scraped the bottom of his bowl, and just like that, everyone started to drift away to their own tents. Klin stared into the fire like he could see the Prophets in it, Ornak pressed against his side to share warmth against the night.

“Nerys.” Kira turned to see Shakaar still looking at her with that same look, the one that spoke of regret and exasperation and fondness. “Be careful.”

Kira looked to Jadzia, striding towards their tent with a purpose, and sighed, her heart heavy and tired in her chest. “I know.” She grabbed his hand, folding it in both of hers. For a moment, she could have sworn the Prophets had made them the same, hewn from the earth and skies of Bajor, forged in its iron core. This planet was theirs. This planet was _them_.

The fire cracked out against the night, a fresh green branch showering Klin and Ornak in embers, and the moment broke. But Kira felt a little more peaceful, a little more ready. Tomorrow, there would be one less Cardassian on the surface of her planet.

“Sleep well,” Kira said, and released his hand. The night sprang to life around them again, barrow bugs hissing from the trees. Shakaar gave her a sad smile, a nod, and walked off to his tent alone.

With Bajor’s future beating in her heart, Kira joined Jadzia in their tent.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Even though Kira knew her cuffs would release her if she twisted her wrists just right, there was something about the restraints that had her heart wailing in her chest.

Latha stalked up ahead, batting aside branches with his wide-bladed knife, leaving a clear trail that would seem to lead from the place Kira had been ‘found’ to the place they would emerge in front of the Dahkur outpost. Lorit was the one holding onto Kira, his hand light on her arm. It was more a comfort than a guide, but it made her skin prickle nonetheless.

All she had to do was get into that cell and she’d be alright— on track. Not safe, never safe.

The clouds overhead were long, thin, and ribbed, like Bajor itself was starved with its people. Roots stretched across the ground, tripping Kira every other step. As they walked, it slowly got easier and easier to keep her balance with her wrists crossed behind her back, but she had lost the grace that she so often depended on to stay silent.

“Almost there,” Lorit murmured, and Kira nodded, her neck tight. She tried to relax her shoulders, her hips, her lips, to look the part. Luma Rahl was a kept woman, someone who offered comfort, or whatever the Cardassians wanted.

Latha cut through the last branches, revealing the outpost squatting at the base of the hill Kira had climbed, Jadzia’s unfamiliar hand in hers. Anger smoked in her chest, and Kira set her lips in a hard line. She may have been a comfort woman, but she was one that had run.

You couldn’t go back from being a collaborator, but you could make the world that formed you regret it.

The Cardassians on patrol were on them immediately. Their words swam, the half-sibilance of their voices and dry, reptile smell of them sparking a sickening wave of feelings in Kira. It wasn’t rage, wasn’t fear, but something both alien and intensely familiar. She _felt,_ indefinably; a lit fuse refusing to ignite its bomb.

Even as the guards reached them, brandishing their disruptors with thoughtless confidence, Kira could see their suspicions ebbing. They saw the picture as they were meant to, from the cuffs around Kira's wrists to her torn, fancy shirt — Jadzia’s, carefully mended and washed and altered. They lowered the muzzles of their disruptors to point at the scorched earth at their feet. “What’s this?”

Latha spat at Kira’s feet, casually, and waved his disruptor with a careless grace of long use and little self-preservation. “Luma Rahl,” he drawled, tasting Kira’s false name like it was a precious, disgusting delicacy. “Comfort woman for our very own glinn Damar, aide to our precious and honoured gul Dukat.”

Lorit shook Kira, and she lost a step, stumbling forwards into Latha, who shoved her aside. Kira’s foot hit another of those infernal roots and she fell to her knees, head ducked to the dirt. Lorit snorted, and kicked her side. It was gentle as it could be, but air left Kira’s body in a rush. “Useless creature, isn’t she?” Kira could hear genuine scorn in his voice, though she knew it wasn’t directed at her. “How she got this far, only the Obsidian Order knows.”

Kira’s face was lifted with rough, scaled hands, and the Cardassian guard peered into her face close enough she could see the dirt-smeared, startled girl reflected in his eyes. At the corner of her jaw, a bruise lingered. She’d had Lorit beat her with a stick early in the morning before she set out, so the shape wouldn’t be so immediately obvious, but she remembered the delight of Jadzia’s lips on her skin.  

“Pitiful,” the other Cardassian sneered, like he was anyone to talk in his dusty armour on a planet that was being slowly eaten away from under his feet. He was broader set than the first guard, his cheeks and neck ridges nearly swollen.

Kira spat in the first one’s face, and he sprawled back, scrubbing at his eye. Before Kira could do more than snarl something wordless, he backhanded her. Black swept over her for a moment, and when she blinked her eyes open again her head was resting on Lorit’s boot. Lorit’s leg, pressed against her side, was stone-hard with tension, but she wouldn’t have known it looking up at him, his eyes looking through her. A true collaborator in all but truth.

“Careful with the merchandise,” he said, and kicked Kira off his boot. “I don’t want Damar on me if you make his pretty face black and blue."

Latha, in an unusual display of kindness, hauled Kira to her feet and used his hand on her arm to stabilize her while looking like he was keeping her from running. Kira did her best not to lean on him. “Are you taking her, or do we have to haul her all the way to-“

“Fine,” the second Cardassian snapped, and gestured at his fellow, still wiping Kira’s spit out of his eye. “Take her. Throw her in a cell. No food until the morning.”

Reptilian hands tore her from Latha, and Kira stumbled forwards, releasing any grip she had on her balance. Better to have bruised knees and be underestimated. “Wait,” she said, and went to her knees again, curling in enough to see Lorit staring after her, his face the beginning of pained. She smiled, quick as she could, and straightened, doing her best to be frantic and petty and shallow. “Please. I’ll take myself back there. I don’t want to be in a cell.”

Kira knew the Cardassians. And so she begged them to let her go, making enough of a visible fuss they didn’t pay any attention to the corded muscle in her arms or the very un-comfort-woman cut to her hair.

When her voice petered out, Kira had prepared the force field disruptor, the magnet twisted into place and digging into the side of her head. She huddled in the corner of her cell, cold and aching and fiercely triumphant.

Now to wait.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Kira could tell Jadzia was coming far before the alien was shoved into cell with her. Around her, the air echoed with confused shouts and footsteps. The building was tough enough for the weather, but not well built. The Cardassians couldn’t have cared less. They would strip Bajor’s resources bare and move on.

Jadzia was shoved into the cell still shackled, long legs tangling and bruises splotched over the spots on her neck. The earring dangled from her ear still, shiny and shocking to see on her. The sight of something so familiar but so wrong glittering from the side of her face magnified the alienness of her strange nose and her spots. The force field came up before she was fully through, clipping her heel and sending her careening for Kira, prone on the cot with her arms around her face.

Jadzia leant against the hard edge of the cot, her braid slipping over her shoulder to dangle over Kira’s face, the end tickling her nose. “Are you alright?” she said, soft enough their jailer wouldn’t be able to hear her. Kira twitched her fingers, and Jadzia withdrew, stalking back to the door on her long legs. Lupaza’s shirt hung short on her, the sides pulled free of her pants. Her shoulder slammed against the force field in a shower of sparks, and Jadzia had to stumble back, cursing all the way. Jadzia swore at the Cardassian watching, every profanity spoken in the Shakaar cell spilling from her mouth in a properly conjugated glory.

Kira was proud of her. She’d learned the important parts of the language well.

“Quiet!” the guard finally snapped, when Kira shifted, positioning the crack between her arms to better see the gateway between their cell and outside. The guard’s face was twisted up, his beady eyes on Kira. “It took an age to get her quiet. If you wake her up, you’ll be paying for it.”

“Right,” Jadzia said, and shrugged best as she could with her hands behind her back. “Because you’re going to be _such_ a courteous host if I follow all your commands.”

The guard’s voice rose in anger, slinging profanities back at Jadzia for a moment, but abruptly, he fell silent. Kira caught the edge of a salute, and the soldier backed up, leaving room in front of the console for the man that joined them.

When he stepped into view of the crack between her arms, Kira’s first thought was secondary to her impression of anger. The heat of it had the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. She could smell ashes in the air, imagined or not, of the villages gul Zarale had burned to the ground with everyone inside.

Jadzia didn’t know, couldn’t know, and so she merely raised an eyebrow at him. They’d told her about his role, but she hadn’t seen it. She didn’t _know_ it, not the way Kira did. Maybe it was better Jadzia was objective for the moment. “You must be the person who wants me so badly.”

“Not you.” Zarale barely seemed to notice the form of the alien standing in front of him, like Jadzia was a hologram. He stared through her and into her. He saw what he wanted out of her, not who she was. “Your knowledge. You represent a unique opportunity, Dax. I would be a fool to allow it to pass by."

“You may as well kill me.” Jadzia had clasped her hands behind her back, straightening out her posture to be again the woman Kira knew instead of the profane farce she had put on for their first jailor. Jadzia didn’t seem bothered by her place in the cell. “Dax won’t last a week in you.”

Zarale simply regarded Dax for a moment with cool, monstrous eyes, and then turned his gaze to Kira. Her breathing didn’t pick up, but she smelled ash again, mixed with the sweet scent of burned flesh. “I’m aware of issues with physiological differences. Those differences are less with the Bajorans.” His cool gaze turned back to Jadzia. “I think she’d be well suited for the role, no?”

“Too frail,” Jadzia shot back. Though neither of them were looking to Kira, she felt like a slaughtered tyrfox, her body laid out to bargain over. “Oh, I might have lost weight since landing here, but I’ve hosted Dax for half a decade. They’d both be hard-pressed to survive joining.”

Zarale waved her off. “We can find another, someone better physically suited. There are enough of them here to give you a thousand next hosts."

“On this planet?” Jadzia scoffed. “I’ve seen how you treat these people. You’d be hard pressed to find someone healthy, and even harder pressed to find someone you can trust to be loyal.” She indicated Kira again with a nod of her head. “You think she’d become any more agreeable if you put _me_ in her?"

“She belongs to one of ours.” It was a dismissal. Gul Zarale, butcher of a dozen villages, thought Kira was nothing more than another vapid woman who had broken under the strain of the Occupation. “She will do as the glinn tells her.” His smile was reptilian, stretched wide across scales not meant to accommodate the movement. He held up a hand — the Cardassian manning the guard post stood at attention, then marched out. “As these people do my bidding. Ah, the Bajorans may not be as loyal, but they know their place.”

Kira rose from her cot, blinking blearily. In the moment when Luma Rahl first caught sight of the gul that had torn her planet apart, she shrieked and flailed, nearly slamming up against the force field. It twinkled a pretty warning inches from Kira’s nose, her hands tight over her mouth to stifle her scream.

Kira’s thumb lay against the base of the chain on her earring, ready to activate the force field disruptor.

“Rahl,” Zarale said softly. The use of her identity’s personal name prickled across Kira’s skin, even though it wasn’t her own. “Kind of you to join us.” His face twisted, lip curling. “See, Dax? This is what you’re defending? A people who sleep through important moment and overreact at small sights?”

“I defend those who defend themselves,” Jadzia told him. The words were almost mild, if not for the faint threat that ran under it. It was something they all knew was backed by dozens of years experience of death and dismemberment. “You underestimate them, I think.”

At her words, the building shook ever so slightly. Footsteps pounded in the hall and faded. Voices were muted through the door, but Kira heard unmistakable commands.

Kira smiled with teeth, and slammed her earring against the invisible wall in front of her. Jadzia did the same.

The whole force field lit up a shimmering gold and tore, sparks flying from the emitters. Kira was first through, slamming her elbow into Zarale’s face. He didn’t go down but he stumbled back, his hand flying for his disruptor. Jadzia got there first, tearing it from him. In a twist that looked practiced, she braced with the long barrel, driving Zarale back and back and back until he was in the cell where they had been.

Going in, there had always been the chance that this mission would end in death for Kira, Dax, or both, but they had known that. There were thirteen soldiers at the Dahkur outpost in all. The five that were always stationed there, and a further eight of Zarale’s personal guard. They were dangerous, as all Cardassians were, but only when they were around. If they left… well, that was a whole other story. Zarale had done half their work for them, dismissing his personal attaché.

Jadzia handed the disruptor to Kira. It was light in her hand, the shape familiar as split knuckles and an empty stomach.

Kira smote Zarale with his own gun, his skin splitting under the barrel. His hands hit the floor and she kicked him back up, his eyes wild as they met hers. His mouth began to shape something, a call for assistance, and Kira clubbed him again. He fell back, helpless.

Kira raised his disruptor, her finger steady on the trigger.

In his last moments, he seemed to recognize the clothes Kira wore, the way they bulged slightly at the hems, the way the fabric hung differently than everything else that had been manufactured on this planet. He’d seen everything they’d collected on Jadzia, after all. His eyes travelled between them, mapping the spaces and closeness and the way their bodies knew each other.

Some would have spoken to Zarale. Some would have given him a moment to think over the things that he’d done, to regret his atrocities. Maybe some would have had words prepared, sharp things that would tear him apart beneath the armour.

Kira wasn’t that person. She shot him, a sizzling one right between the eyes, just below the divot on his forehead. She’d set the disruptor on the notch below maximum — the setting that took longer to kill, and left a body. She wanted evidence of this.

Kira lowered the disruptor, the grip cool beneath her palm in the way their repaired, aging models never were. She spared a glance for Jadzia. “Translator?”

“Online.” Dax ducked over Zarale’s body and fished the slim technology from an inside pocket of his armour. “No damage.”

“Good.” Kira examined the power cell on her new disruptor with detached efficiency, and pocketed the depleted round. The room echoed with the reload. “Reaction time should be-“

The door burst open, and Cardassians flooded in. The first didn’t get to see Zarale’s body — Kira’s shot took him across the shoulder and he spun to the floor dead. The next howled when he saw the gul at the back, a cry matched by Kira’s own. There weren’t many of them. Many had headed out to deal with the explosions, a gift from Furel and Lupaza.

Jadzia handled the next, slamming them back with a foot to the first’s stomach, giving Kira a clear shot. She fired, twice, and they disintegrated, leaving the way clear. More disruptor fire echoed from the entryway, the puttering, coughing blasts from the Resistance’s ancient weaponry and the clean sharp shots of the Cardassians crashing like thunder.

Before they made the last run for it, a long-range compact communicator tucked into Kira’s belt, Kira grabbed at Jadzia’s collar and dragged her down, the long hot body against her and the feel of Jadzia’s hungry lips cutting the adrenaline with a sweet rush.

Victory had never tasted so sweet.

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to my beta LMoriarty who legit watched some DS9 just so she could beta this properly. I love you.
> 
> And thank you so much to the Star Trek Femslash Big Bang. Without that structure, I never would have gotten around to writing out this idea. I think I'm better for it! I hope you enjoyed this story about gays in space!
> 
> You can find me on tumblr over at writerproblem193.tumblr.com, where I would adore to answer questions about this fic! You're free to translate or podfic this, just tell me so that I can be all excited about it!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art: Otherwise Occupied](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12903456) by [AFireInTheAttic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AFireInTheAttic/pseuds/AFireInTheAttic)




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